


An Empty Gesture

by Jadestarwolf



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reapertale (Undertale), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Real Events, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23033011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadestarwolf/pseuds/Jadestarwolf
Summary: VENTING.Reaper Sans isn't happy with your decision. Good thing you're not a red soul. First-person.
Relationships: Sans (Undertale)/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	An Empty Gesture

I stared at the grim fake smile my ‘imaginary friend’ wore, the tiny pinpricks of light the only source of light in the quiet laundry room. His expressive skull, yes skull, was cast into a look of disappointed resignation as his gaze grazed over my chest.

“i don’t mean to _mix_ metaphors, but you're cutting it close kid.”

I couldn't respond. The lump in my throat prevented me from any real conversation as I fiddled with the top of the can of soda I nursed.

He lets out a deep sigh, stepping forward as his reaper cloak billowed behind him, he grabbed an old housecoat from the piles of clothes on top of a dryer that had just never gotten put away. Keeping the cloth between us, he wrapped me in an embrace. “No one's good. Just gotta keep trying. You'll be fine.”

Words spoken often but lately having less impact. The crushing feeling in my chest deepened. I couldn't help but glance at the baggie of painkillers hidden under the clothes desperately.

He had, that is, my husband had found the evidence of my treachery. It wasn't grand or even that bad, but the small things added up and it was the straws that'll eventually break his heart. Not yet, not quite yet, but the mistakes... the little things were always my problem. My mind overlooked the little things unless I was freaking out about them.

I take a deep breath. My friend had resumed his polite distance. “We've known each other a long while now, huh buddy?” He rasped.

I nodded my head in response, grateful for the change in thought. My heart? No my soul, felt shredded but with each thump it felt as if the bits crumpled a little further. A wet laugh escaped my lips, oh I guess I'm still crying.

I suspect the first time he met me, I hadn't really noticed, being a tiny child and all. I've always been sensitive, but somehow when my grandparents would take me to all the funerals for their family, I wouldn't be upset or cry in the least. Yes, I knew people had died, yes I knew that family members that meet at the reunions would be affected forever. Still, I didn't feel the need to be sad. I feel like there was something there, something comforting everyone but they were too busy being distraught to notice.

As I grew, and my response to death was the same, my family was low-key worried. They never would mention it till way later in life.

It was around my early teenage years when I would recognize the feeling for what it was, what he was. I had just tried to kill myself for the first time, a pitiful attempt really, but all the same as I stared out the window clutching the belt I'd tried to strangle myself with, I barely made note of a shape behind my reflection. Didn't register much as I was tired and emotionally spent.

The little idiot I've always been, trying to fix emotional anguish with physical pain. The two don't correlate as much as people think. It's honestly only a distraction so nothing's fixed. Can't even call it a metaphorical bandaid, more like a paper towel over a wound.

Still, I was that foolish idiot that would keep trying, despite being too cowardly to do it properly, too weak to even choke myself out, too scared of the knife to try it more than once, too fearful to follow my nightmares initiative and let a car take me out (yeah, that's an actual reoccurring dream) and in the end, it wasn't fear of dying that kept me alive. It was the idea of what would happen to my family, the financial burden that it would bring to my already thrifty family. I decided to wait till I was an adult, save enough money to set my affairs in order, then do it. Good plan.

I was still depressed, I have always hated myself more than anyone else could possibly, and the need to punish myself continued. So sometimes when I was overwhelmed and hyperventilating, I’d just use my collar, my dog collar, to restrict my breathing till I calmed. Sometimes I still took it took far and bruised, but I bruise easily anyway and with the collar obstructing the marred skin no one noticed. No one really ever looked at me anyway.

I met the man who'd become my husband and promised to stop hurting myself, and so I ditched everything. My collar, my calming technique, the number of injuries dwindled.

I didn't see reaper so much in my days after that. Oh yes, the bursts of self-hatred out of nowhere and unexpected tears never ceased, but I got better at hiding them. I got quieter with my sobbing when I noticed how much it hurt my beloved. There was no solving it and I was hurting him. It seemed like the only thing I could do to solve the problem.

Years passed by, I was happy or at least I was able to appreciate the small things enough to consider myself as such. Still depressed every so often, but happy. When you’ve lived on scraps of happiness for so long, any little event makes a huge impact either positive or negative and… somehow every time I would find something that I could lose myself in, really enjoy to the depths of my soul, it ended up driving me and my husband apart. I couldn’t- can’t tell if it’s because I obsess and take things to an unhealthy level or his paranoia about becoming unnecessary drives him to loathe the things I dive into, but every time I find something that is my next big ‘thing’, it ends up becoming a problem and I have to discard it. It feels like a piece of myself goes along with each to be discarded, hopefully becoming closer to whoever I’m supposed to be.

As the years rolled by and I became so used to abandoning my passions if they caused a problem, I found instances where that hallow visage stared at me from behind my reflection increasing as was the disconnect between me and the people around me. I can’t create meaningful relationships with humans around me anymore. Physical contact with anyone other than him is met with suspicion. Hell, even going to work is more than his ego can handle, while his physical situation has dwindled till he can hardly function, he depends on me to meet his every need, only to be ignored when I get in the way of HIS interests. His interests keep him sane he says, being so isolated from human contact, but who is it that isolated him? Days I question everything, I catch little glimpses of that shadowed cloak while I habitually avoid all reflections of myself.

Is this to be my life? Unable to stand the direction our lives were headed, I wrote it all down - wrote everything I could think of, the problem, several possible solutions, the inevitable conclusion if nothing is done. I knew if I was to speak those words my anxiety wouldn’t allow me to stay strong and reinforce those words, I’m too much a crybaby so I know the moment the confrontation starts I would beg forgiveness even if I did nothing wrong (not his fault/conditioning from my mom).

I took a few weeks with it and made absolutely certain that I meant everything, that I believed in the chance we could change for the better. Then, presenting him with the document, I left the room because my cowardice was already spiking. When he came to me, he assumed that I was divorcing him and just giving him excuses. Did you read it?! I absolutely didn’t say anything about that! My soul nearly shattered just then, and the begging was already spewing from my lips like a fountain. I backtracked, claimed I wasn’t in my right mind (I was), and that everything was okay (it wasn’t) and I would do anything for him to forgive me (my panic is so predictable). He screamed at me but even moments later I couldn’t remember what he’d said or even my response. I might be blocking things out? I know the disassociation began pretty soon afterward. It’s okay, that just happens every now and then.

I ran barefooted up the stairs and out into the chill summer night, pacing outside and hoping that our argument (my mistake) hadn’t bothered my grandparents and mom upstairs. He yelled a few more things before he came and up and looked at me from behind the closed screen door, that cloaked figure just behind him with an unreadable look. My husband gave me an ultimatum, either I give up all my writing and associations with fandoms and show him everything my ‘treacherous heart had done’ or he would start looking for someone to crash with and start-up divorce proceedings. Everything in me lurched at those words, and I numbly nodded, slowly walking towards the door to return to him, my instincts fighting kicking and screaming to obey while my logical side was nowhere to be felt. I eyed the skeleton who ducked into the laundry room as we passed on our way to the downstairs bedroom that my husband and I shared. He saw everything, the things I wrote to vent, the things I drew to make my few online friends happy, the things I wrote in my sex-starved desperation...

The gist? I had to give up in order for him to feel safe. I can’t say no, I never could. Abandonment hurts too much and my instincts won’t let me say any different, even if my logic knows we’d both probably be better people if we could just step back. Even after I accepted my fate and began deleting months of loving work from my digital spaces, eyes flooded as I destroyed each of my babies I couldn’t think of anything but how empty and numb I felt. How if I can’t even express myself does that mean I’m even alive? I exist, but only barely right?

For ages, I had been seriously (undiagnosed) depressed and in order to cope, I thought of what it would take to end myself the most efficient way. Plans and backups. In all my zombie preparation everything I had thought of was already available. All I really need is my blender and stash and I could put my plan into action. I ran upstairs to grab any liquid, ah a soda will work! Next stop, my blender, which I kept in the laundry room/pantry. Quietly stalking down the stairs to not draw attention from my husband who now was talking to his online friends about what I had just done to us, I easily padded into the concrete room, reaching towards the object as I felt a cool presence behind me. Glancing back, my dear imaginary coping mechanism forced the blender to remain with his gravity magic. Or maybe all the crying just made my muscles weak, but he felt so real and he was now between me and the end of my suffering.

He already knew everything. He’d been here the whole time right? Or he was part of my stressed-out imagination and still he would know everything… but in the end, I quietly told him the whole story. Maybe I just needed to feel like someone would listen. Maybe I still do, I don’t know.

I still feel empty.

I don’t know how he wrapped me in that housecoat if he wasn’t real.

Why can’t he just take me with him?

But he can’t, or he won’t and so I keep plodding along with life, seeing visions of him and his compatriots just behind my eyes as everything slowly shut down as day after day I faithfully obey my promise. That is until today, I’d kept my word not to interact with the fandoms.

I don’t know why.

I don’t know what to do.

I just wanted you to know that you guys have truly made that moment in time feel magical and I love you. Please, if you ever need to talk to someone there are hotlines and stuff, even though I’ve been too chicken to call.

Please take care of yourselves, and remember to hydrate.

There’s someone out there that loves you, even if you’ve never met yet.


End file.
